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Brock Beauchamp

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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp

  1. I still can't believe the Twins will sign Darvish but that's because Falvey is from Cleveland and that's not how they operate over there. On the other hand, Levine is from Texas and that is how they operate over there.
  2. Agreed. I watched Hunter a lot and he was a fantastic centerfielder but didn't have the speed of Buxton, nothing close to it. And I don't trust defensive metrics from that time in baseball, especially the outliers (I still have difficulty believing many of the outliers in the modern game).
  3. Impressive. Six out of eight guys in the top half of the rankings.
  4. 1. Because Dozier didn't deserve this particular award. That's not a knock on Brian, as he had an excellent season. 2. A guy who at least deserved consideration, Mauer, didn't even make the finalist cut. I'm glad for Brian but I wish this award was based more on defensive merit and not reputation and/or offense.
  5. This is how I feel as well. You won't find a breakout/recovery guy on the cheap if you don't try. But that breakout/recovery guy is not a replacement for signing a legit arm as well.
  6. Or Scott Kazmir. Or Jake Arrieta. Those kind of rebound/breakout pitchers aren't terribly uncommon, the trick is identifying them.
  7. It seems to me that May would slot in nicely as the long man for the first few months of the season to get a read on where his breaking stuff is in 2018. Besides, need to keep his innings down anyway. If he's showing progress in July, consider moving him to the rotation.
  8. And defense would almost certainly be a downgrade with Dozier at the hot corner. Remember Trevor Plouffe? Most guys can't just pick up third base in Spring Training. Plouffe spent most of his MiLB career at short and was absolutely terrible at third base when he hit the majors.
  9. I'm willing to trade anyone not named Berrios, Buxton, or Sano if it brings back pitching. Though I'd prefer to move a corner outfielder before I moved Polanco, seeing how I don't believe the Twins should retain Dozier past 2018. Jorge can slide over to second base while Gordon takes short.
  10. Well, FIP excludes all non true outcome balls, which assumes a normalization of those balls. I'm not sure that's accurate given the Twins outfield defense and the pitching staff's general flyball tendencies.
  11. Yep, and 2018 should shake out to be a very good season for the Twins if the front office makes the right moves. They were 19th in ERA and 25th in FIP (which I believe is a bit misleading because Buxton). Kinda bad, but not without hope. Gibson made some strides late in the season. The bullpen wasn't atrocious late in the season. Chargois and Jay might be ready pretty early in the season. Gonsalves and Romero might be ready pretty early in the season. May will be back, though I don't count on him for much coming back from TJ (though with a good fastball, he might be serviceable). Pick up a decent starter and a decent reliever and this team could be a legitimate contender out of the gate. This offense, powered by a full season Buxton, could have them sniffing 90 wins if the front office plays the right hand.
  12. One thing Ryan doesn't get enough credit for pulling off is drafting/signing two waves of talent. It's incredibly hard to do and that's why the Twins were so good for so long. The first wave hit its stride in 2001 and as many of them were leaving in 2005, the second wave hit and kept the team in contention until 2010. On top of that, the run should have lasted until 2011-12 but the team ran into an amazing stretch of absolutely **** injury luck. That's a hell of a run. It didn't end up with a trophy but it's a hell of an accomplishment for a small market team (which the Twins were at the time, playing in the dome).
  13. The point is that it's hard to trade Santana for pitching that will help within the next 36 months (or 24 months moving the timeline back a year). It's a great idea in theory but in practice, it would be incredibly difficult to pull off, if not impossible. If a team has young pitching close to the majors, they're not going to trade those pieces for a veteran pitcher. They'll just lean on the good, young arm that they control for the next seven seasons. So you're trading a 3-ish WAR pitcher for a few prospects that are a few years away. What do you do in the meantime as Sano, Buxton, Rosario, Berrios, et al are accruing service time? By the time this hypothetical pitcher is ready, all those guys would be at 4+ years of service time, at the minimum. If you want good pitching, you're going to have to either give up prospects or open the wallet. Trading pitching for pitching between contenders isn't really an option.
  14. These three paragraphs don't make much sense alongside one another. I was open to a Santana trade last winter. I wasn't shocked the front office held on to him but I thought exploring a trade was a solid idea, at the very least. But then the Twins won 85 games, 10-11 more than I expected, so what do I know? Trading Santana and then picking up "good young starters" isn't going to happen. If a team has a good young starter, why do they want Santana? If the starter is 3+ years away from MLB, how does that help the Twins? Pitching for pitching deals don't usually work if both teams are trying to compete in the next two seasons. Never mind that even if Santana declines, he's still likely a 3/4 in the Twins rotation for the next one or two seasons. Given the rotation and pitching depth, that's badly needed on this team. The position players aren't getting younger and they're burning service time by the day. The Twins can't wait for a guy to graduate to Minnesota in 2020, they need guys who can help immediately.
  15. Yes and yes. A strong side platoon is barely a platoon at all. It's half pinch-hitting, half platoon with a guy who can kinda hit lefties and kinda man the position. With that said, Kepler has to post an OPS north of .500 or he's in trouble. I think he will but it'll take reps. Not a lot. I doubt he'll ever hit lefties over a .700 OPS but that's okay. Most lefties suck against lefties. He just needs to do enough that he's not an automatic out against LHP.
  16. I think one of the advantages of Molitor’s inexperience as manager is that he doesn’t have “his guys”. He hasn’t traveled with a pitching and hitting coach through the minors for 10 years and he hasn’t formed relationships with specific people he wants ro hold those positions. And Molitor isn’t a dumb guy. I suspect he acknowledges Falvey has more experience in this realm and says “give me the best guy you can find, I don’t know pitching anyway”.
  17. Yeah... It's really hard to win 100 games in back-to-back seasons because it requires quite a bit of luck along with a really good roster. The last team to go back-to-back was the 2003-2004 Yankees, I believe. We're nearing 15 years without a back-to-back 100 win team. It's not like the Cubs collapsed. They won over 90 games.
  18. Oddly enough, I agree. In recent years, a Twins starter going down meant some truly awful AAAA pitcher was slotted to pick up in his place. But the Twins are getting close to graduating some interesting arms. Nothing overpowering, but interesting. You have Gonsalves and Romero on the cusp. Behind them, you have Thorpe, Stewart, and the 2017 deadline acquisitions. I'm more worried about a Phil Hughes situation soaking up innings than I am a guy going down because I wouldn't mind seeing some of those guys get a chance early in 2018.
  19. This was my first thought when I read the news. Finding a no-name wasn't the least bit surprising. The fact that no-name came from Oakland was quite surprising.
  20. I don't think they expected Dozier to revert to pre-2016 levels. His peripherals suggested he was a different player going forward. How much different was the question. Was he an .800 or .850 OPS guy?
  21. You don't build playoff teams by selling your best assets for fifty cents on the dollar.
  22. It's stupid because if you have a bunch of money today, it will be a much larger pile of money tomorrow if you follow some pretty basic steps. If you offered me $500,000 today or $50,000 per year for 20 years ($1m total), I'd take the $500k every time because I could turn it into way more than $1m very easily. And that's even if you're paying me double the amount over time and doesn't even include inflation expenses or anything of the sort. If you're offering me a 1:1 dollar ratio either front-loaded or back-loaded, I'm going to take the front-loading because it's so much better for me financially. And you'd think at least one agent in pro sports would be able to explain this concept to his client.
  23. I get the team financial side of the argument but it doesn't hold much weight with me. Teams often throw $5m at a utility player in hopes he will provide 200 not-terrible plate appearances in a season. Dishing $500,000 extra to a player to add literally tens of millions of payroll flexibility (and competitiveness, therefore additional revenue) in a front-loaded contract should offset that concern and then some and then some more. Just fielding one more postseason game or extending a division race by a week will deliver the team so much more revenue than inflation costs, not only in immediate revenue from the game(s) but also through increased tickets sales early the following season. The player thing is just stupid. That's what agents are for, to explain what it's stupid. I'm not saying you're wrong about the players' attitudes regarding pay, I'm just saying it's really stupid (and you know why it's stupid). I'm not saying this is something teams should do all the time. No one cares about a front-loaded Escobar contract. But front-loading Sano and Buxton could mean the Twins are competitive in 2023 versus selling off and riding out the remainder of bad contracts.
  24. Yes, this. De Leon is not, say, Mark Prior. He's not a "mechanically perfect" prospect who was elite and had no real injury history. De Leon is an old Jose Berrios not only lacking Berrios' durability but the fact that he (still) hasn't pitched anything close to a full season is a red flag. That's a huge gamble. Sure, even Prior and his "perfect mechanics" bombed out due to injury. It can happen to anybody. There is an inherent risk in any pitching prospect... but then there are guys like De Leon, who are good (not great) and have a fair amount of baggage coming along with them. And when taking on those guys, you ask for more because of that additional baggage. I would have liked to pick up De Leon last winter plus another prospect or two. But De Leon isn't some kind of savior. He doesn't even have the upside of Meyer, IMO, which is why I keep bringing up Alex. De Leon peaks around 92mph. That's not super impressive, no matter how good his breaking stuff may be. Today's game is all about velocity and that's another black mark against De Leon. He's older, less durable, and throws more slowly than Berrios.
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